The recession may have hit men particularly hard, but they've been the runaway winners during the recovery.
Men have landed 88 percent of the jobs U.S. employers created since the recession ended in June 2009, Bloomberg reports. During the same period, the unemployment rate for men dropped 2.3 percent, while it fell 0.1 percent for women.
Though industries typically dominated by men, such as construction, were hit hardest during the recession, the men have mostly caught back up. Indeed, U.S. men and women over the age of 20 now have equivalent unemployment rates, with women actually having suffered more during the recovery, as noted by Businessweek.
That’s because government -- a sector dominated by women -- has been hemorrhaging jobs in the recovery. The government slashed 6,000 jobs last month, much less than the average of 22,000 jobs per month cut last year.
In addition to dominating areas that have suffered during the recovery, women are also up against stereotypes that can make it more difficult for them to land jobs. The notion that men are the primary breadwinners and that women workers are often distracted by childcare responsibilities has caused many employers to favor men over women in the job market, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports. One indicator: Pregnancy discrimination rose during the recession and remains high in the recovery.
Yet the tide may be turning. The number of employed women rose by 192,000 in the last two months, according to The New York Times, while the number of employed men increased by 83,000 during the same period. That’s because white-collar sectors like education and health care, which are largely dominated by women, have seen some recent job growth.
But even if women continue to land more jobs, they're still likely to be earning less than men. In 2010, Women workers in the U.S. were paid 19 percent less than their male counter parts, according to the Labor Department.